535is Power Sport Seat Options ?

[Zinno28]

I'm having trouble locating a pearl beige driver sport seat for my car. Besides making a bracket and fitting the narrower e30 seat in there, are there any other options from other car brands that bolt right in ?? Thank you !

[Mike W.]

Do you have a sport seat but with trashed upholstery or have comforts and want a sport seat? If you have one but with trashed upholster, I'd look at recovering it. There are/is, at least one, moderately priced option for replacement upholstery, likely mediocre quality, but ~40 year old leather isn't likely to be pristine either. So you would need to remove and replace the upholstery, not easy, but not like rebuilding an engine either, I'd rate it as a full moderate in terms of difficulty. Or take it to an upholstery shop and pay a professional to do it and pay accordingly. Something I personally have a hard time doing.

If you need a, or a pair, it's going to be harder to find. Most people selling are either going to have a pair or a passenger seat, finding a drivers alone is going to be a significant challenge. I doubt anything else is a direct bolt up, with the exception of E24 sports which are nominally the same, but with stitching in a different direction.

Many other seats can be made to fit, some are excellent seats, and with the exception of this era sport seats I'm not a fan of BMW seats, but appearance won't match, and leather might be a problem to find. Not to mention even coming close on color matching.

[Zinno28]

Thanks for the info ! My drivers seat frame has cracked in half in two spots. I don't think a reweld is an option for it. Both recline motors have fallen apart and have chewed into the seat frame (Which are $350 each). Not to mention the leather and foam has faded away. I was going to rebuild it but I'll be spending the same amount of money to source a seat frame, foam, leather, and motors and do all the rebuild myself as opposed to just finding a used seat which is turning out to be a big hurdle. Good call on the e24 sports - i'll expand my search to include those.

[stuartinmn]

Typically a passenger seat will have less wear and tear, would it be possible to find one of those and then use parts from it to fix your driver's seat?

[Zinno28]

Good point stuart ! I'll expand my search to include that too !

[jimoreno]

My driver's seat was also cracked at the middle area in the bottom section. I welded it but added an additional layer of sheet metal larger than the cracked area to reinforce it. That was several years ago (at least 5) and it has withstood my weight (used to be around 225 now 205).
Just saying because finding another un-cracked frame is going to be tough and with this option at least you can keep using it while the search continues!

[Zinno28]

Sweet ! The driver's seat is such "high traffic" area that I didn't think that was possible. I'll work on getting a welder to look at it. Good idea

[Ju@n]

If I'm not mistaken, passenger and driver seats are the same, except for the plastic trim on the side which can be moved around.
So, given you already have the driver's seat, and thus, that plastic trim with the button, you can buy either

[Zinno28]

Yes ! Funny you say this today. I just swapped the pass. seat over to the drivers side this morning. Works great ! Now I just need a passenger seat...